9:44 AM---it has begun

Ok..so how surreal is this. Mike and I are eating breakfast in the cafeteria and 2 floors below lies our daughter sedated and getting prepped to undergo major surgery. It just seems weird that we are sitting here as if everything is so normal and she is going to endure so much....hmmm...it is the land of disassociation that I think lets me handle all of this.

Okay...Mike's brother Alan has joined us at the table and as he asks questions, I realize there may have been previous details left out of our blogs. They are only operating on the tumor in Lisa's stomach today. It's not big "spot" that they can cut out easily. It's more like a spiderweb or a vine. It's wrapped around/attached to many of the stomach organs (which I learned includes liver, gallbladder, intestine, spleen) so the surgery is pretty intricate and involves many vessels and arteries and such. The other areas where the cancer is at include her brain which at this point they are not considering surgery for, it has shrunk considerably and they are hoping future radiation takes care of the rest; an area in her back side (adrenal glands?) that they think may have died off from chemo; and the bone marrow which the only way to kill this would be the big radiation that will come after she recovers from surgery.

This morning they woke us up at 7:30 and we got ready to go. Lisa was in great spirits and seemed pretty calm. The "go lightly" made no difference thru the night, matter of fact she had the driest night ever at Motts....that's a bit odd. The wheelchair arrived and we were transported down to the pre-op. Lisa's pretty familiar with the place and asked for bubbles and a stuffed animal as soon as we rolled in. While I talked with the anesthesiologist, Lisa did the go-lightly in the bathroom with Mike...finally.

They came out, Lisa chose me to go into the room with her and I got to dress in the goof suit. They took us back to the OR....Lisa was alert and observant and asking questions. The staff was awesome got her comfortable, got Nemo running, showed her all the technology in the room. They used her broviach to give her the sedative, and while Lisa recognized the white medicine, it worked so fast she couldn't complain and managed to get out the words "Beat Cancer" before she went to sleep.

As I type this the nurse from OR called to let me know they got all the IV lines in and all the prep done and surgery started at about 9:45.

So, now we wait....